How to Ride the Wave

It was the fourth dive of my trip and the tenth dive of my life. Visibility was spotty, and combined with my slug like grace 14m under the blue, blue ocean it was turning out to be a tiring and mildly boring dive. 

The instructor gestured for us to head back towards the boat. Not much use hanging around when we could barely see our hands in front of us. It was only after a couple of minutes of flailing about that I realised that everyone else was doing exactly the opposite. There was a strong current which luckily for us, was moving in the very direction that we wanted to go. As experience amply showed, all the other divers stopped moving and focused on breathing evenly. This ensured that they retained neutral buoyancy, conserved energy (and consequently oxygen), all the while moving towards their destination. 

I thought of this incident today, while contemplating the seesawing nature of my once predictable life. It was wake up, get ready, work, work, work, get home, sleep, sleep, sleep. Then it's weekend and soon it's Monday. So wake up, get ready, work, work, work, get home, sleep, sleep, sleep. Then it's weekend and soon it's Monday. For 7 years (I know that many people have done this for 23, 53, 60 years. For me 7 is a lot in a way that half yearly anniversaries are celebrated by the newly married.) I recall the ups and downs of work life, good one day, disastrous the next, snooze worthy on most days. Post my 6th year, I learnt the hard way (and thanks to A's brutal advice) that getting all worked up over every small blip on the excitement screen was a wasteful expense of energy. Growing older helped. As did losing sleep. What I detested the most was my overall powerlessness in making or breaking these things. Hard work rarely determined the output. Neither did sincerity, saving for a rainy day and calling wolf. These sound pathetically naive to me now, but at that time I was out of options. 

There are so many things I want to do, starting with determining how I spend my time. I want to be on time, no, 5 minutes early to meetings, movie shows and family dinners. I want to read sleazy romance novels for 30 minutes everyday before sleeping, in the warm comfort of my bed. I want to create something with my impossibly high standards; something perfect in my eyes. Then I want to share it with the people who really want to see it simply because they are curious, not because they are being paid to or because they accepted my meeting request when they were high on self importance. I want to write of course. 

Nothing can get me as close to what I want as I would like, whether in a controlled environment like a workplace, or out of it. Not by doing it my way, at least. Each day is a like a wave in the ocean. It comes from somewhere deep inside the world, created by many tiny thoughts and actions each adding up to the curve. It it continuous, day after day, but no wave is alike. I cannot determine the wave that would lap at my feet or prevent it from sinking me under. But I can ride it. Take steady breaths, achieve neutral buoyancy, and drift with the current. 

Dance

When A told me what ran through his mind while he was under water, I became aware of the seed of my love for the sea. He said that if we ever needed inspiration for forms and colours, we only needed to look here. This was where the world as we knew it began approximately 4.5 billion years ago, covered in blue all over. Marine life is far more evolved than us, like billion years evolved. To just think of the advancement, the maturity that exists when compared to us, possibly the youngest animal on the planet, surpasses my ability to imagine. 

What I absorbed first was the sheer beauty. If I did not have to remember to breathe steadily, not bump into coral and basically try and be buoyant I would collapse in a heap wherever I land and just, stare. Even then I would not know where to look. At the coral, which formed the base of the marine life? Hideouts of small fishes, go-to places for the bigger ones at meal times? Or the ones lolling on the sea beds, sweeping into themselves plankton and anything else that chances on their path? This time we saw, fifteen metres deep, above ridges of coral, fusiliers, hundreds of them moving around in curves. They seemed to have created an infinite loop, engulfing us within it when we moved closer, pulled by the magnetism of their movements. Stone fish, expertly camouflaged on the coral, but not too far away from their passing prey. A shy octopus scuttled into the nearest cave, its curious head black in the dark, moving this way and that, observing us covertly.

Fusiliers in Dance

The perfect proportions and unthinkable combinations of colour. How do you know? How do you know what looks good with what and create something so compelling, you could spend an hour looking at it and still not have enough? Not just one something, millions of somethings. Over and over and over again. Each more perfect than the other.

Then I understood the rules. Not our rules, the divers’. They are aplenty, starting with don’t touch anything. The rules of the ocean. One, swim in the direction of the current. Swimming against the current is like calling someone at the other end of a cricket pitch during a match. Futile. Two, be benign. If the fish help the coral by identifying when predators are in sight, the coral will hide the fish when danger approaches. Like animal calls in the wild. The monkeys famously have alert calls for the jungle when the tiger is on a prowl. They share knowledge, let it out in the universe, trusting that it will be used for the greater good.

Clown fish and coral

Finally, I got a glimpse of wisdom. We did not belong in the water; we were foreign beings. With bubbles following us wherever we went, awkward movements, careening towards and away from surfaces. Shouting our approach loud and clear in the way we displaced water when we moved. Yet we were tolerated, welcomed, even. Fish moved around us. Nothing approached us and we were told that the only injuries came from touching or provoking animals, which otherwise just had better things to do with their time. Like look for lunch, find a mate, or just sail with the current. While boundaries exist, they are defined by the nature of the habitat like water temperature, currents or depth rather than being forceful, or contrived.

An enlightened friend once countered that we are also a part of nature, so surely we come imbibed with some of these qualities. To say that we behave unnaturally would be harsh. Perhaps, he is right. I hope to reach his level of optimism one day. 

Till then, I remember the silence, the colour, the purpose. Which, far from proving the next big thing, is just to exist. And, to dance. 

The Sea Movie

I touched the damp material to my chest. It smelt mildly of saline and something else. Nostalgia. Barely four hours after I had had the time of my life. This is bordering on the perverse, I thought. I could be forgiven, though, because I had no other proof - no selfie with the diving equipment on, no facebook photo with a 300 likes and 164 comments with a pic of my being suspended in open water, watching fish of all shapes, sizes and colours dart past me, and no words to explain the feeling of being 50 feet under the sea, watching an alternate world at work.

I did not want the material to dry. I wanted it to retain some of the famous Andamans magic in it. Every time I touched it, I wanted to get transported back to those moments, those special moments when I knew beyond a doubt, that this was what made it all worth it. The splurge on a four day trip, for which I had paid the equivalent of almost ten, thanks to the flight tickets, an internationally certified course, and premium accommodation so that I could stay at the same place as the dive site. 

School of Bumphead Parrotfish

It had felt, alternately, like driving on a whole new road with new rules and new vehicles; like watching strangers going about their day through a one way looking glass; and like starring in a movie about the sea, a movie like Finding Nemo. Neither of these comes close to what it actually felt like. Maybe it was a combination of all three. But then again, the mind can only conjure what it already knows. Who knows what all colours were there in the fish that passed me when we dived near a ship wreck, looking all stately and purposeful? Who knows what the majestic Sea Horse was thinking when it popped out of the sea bed as we hovered a couple of metres above, almost like as if it was waiting for us to arrive? 

Black Sea Horse on the sea bed. The diving team said it was rare sight. 

It was surreal. And I was grateful, for being allowed to view the magic up close. To all the creatures of the sea, who made me feel at home in their home. To the schools of parrot fish that majestically wove their way through the water right above us. To the three black and yellow striped fish, swimming in decreasing size in front of me as I descended particularly choppy waters, tired after a hard won battle with waves and wind at the top. They fluttered along in front of me as I descended slowly, a mild ear block preventing me from moving any faster. I looked at them and moved closer, wanting to study their colour pattern and look into their eyes. A little further and then a little more further, till I reached the bottom. And then again in the last three minutes of the dive, during the safety stop. There they were again, fluttering along next to each other in decreasing size. Almost as if wanting to know how my dive was and whether I would see them again soon. 

The clown fish which zig zagged between the live coral, and Long Fin Banner fish, of Finding Nemo fame. Schools of different kinds of fish zipping in one direction and another, reminding me of a busy highway. 

Long Fin Banner Fish

Sea Urchins, Scorpion Fish, Lion Fish and the lone Banded Sea Krait. And many, many more whose names I did not know. So many colours and so many shapes. I could have spent the whole day there, just watching them. Each one of them so beautiful, so graceful, so perfect.

Banded Sea Krait. We saw one hiding in one of the many caves created by dead coral. Its venom is one of the most toxic in the world, but it is very shy and non-aggressive.

Back in the room after a scrumptious lunch (diving is rigorous and I was always left with a healthy appetite after), I wondered what to do. We started the day early, going out on the boat by 7am, and we were back by 1pm, after two dives. So the whole day stretched before me, languid. I could read, write, go to the beach for a swim, walk to the market. Eventually I settled for sitting on my bed, looking through the little holes in the mosquito net tied to the poster above, to the painted pattern on the sloping cloth roof and reliving those moments underwater. When I awoke, it was past five. Ah, the perfect time for a walk on the beach to watch the sunset. And to say goodbye to my new marine friends. 

A bientot. 

P.S. All the pictures are from the internet.